First Impressions

I saw little that was promising in the set as several of the mattes had dry, stiff consistencies that required product to be scraped off to transfer any coverage to my arm to show a swatch. Other mattes were sheer, not that buildable, and took extra effort to blend out. The shimmers were decent but some were dry to the touch and often applied unevenly, lifted as I blended them, or otherwise lost intensity on the lid. They were all prone to fading faster than the average eyeshadow from the few I wore for testing longevity. There’s a good chance this palette gets pushed to the bottom of my priority list, but I’ve been keeping up fairly well with the holiday releases so there may still be a full, in-depth review in the future.

31 Comments

Comments that do not adhere to our comment policy may be removed. Discussion and debate are highly encouraged but we expect community members to participate respectfully. Please keep discussion on-topic, and if you have general feedback, a product review request, an off-topic question, or need technical support, please contact us!

Please help us streamline the comments' section and be more efficient: double-check the post above for more basic information like pricing, availability, and so on to make sure your question wasn't answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but will typically be removed after errors are fixed (unless a response is needed).

We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when a review will be posted as we can't commit to or guarantee product reviews. We don't want to set expectations and then disappoint readers as even products that are swatched don't always end up being reviewed due to time constraints and changes in priorities! Thank you for understanding!

You would think that a brand, that does pretty much the same kind of shades all the time, would get the formula right by now. Don’t waste your time and effort Christine, your swatches and your first impressions alone tell the sad story.

I rather expected this to be poor performing and the colors are the same or similar to what Tarte puts out all of the time. I also hate the packaging on these types of palettes because they just don’t lend themselves to travel. Thank you for the sneak peak but definitely agree that you shouldn’t waste your time testing this, unless you run out of things to do and have extra time, LOL !!!

When y’know it’s that most disappointing time of the year; the usual suspects always show up. Tarte being one of the main ones. So, I’m neither hyped nor miffed about that, because that’s just their usual schtick.

I wonder to what extent these large holiday palettes (not just from Tarte but a few other companies as well) are aimed at people (parents, aunts and uncles, etc.) buying for younger family members or friends who are fairly new to makeup. The pricing and the large volume of product for a good price make them appealing to give as gifts to those who love makeup and many of these people mightn’t be aware about quality issues or be aware of a blog like Temptalia where you can check out stuff like this. So these sell well because they look like they will make an excellent gift for someone on their gift-list. Might explain why companies who can do better and (you would think) should know better keep churning out stuff like this around the holidays.

I knew you wouldn’t like this one! 😹 I actually was super pleased with it! Yes some shades are duds (like the dark purples) but I looove the face products and shadows that might not swatch that well (like fringe), I absolutely loved on my lids. For this price tag, you’re getting a great amount of products imo. My shadow lasted through a cardio workout and my eyeliner was still in my water line after showering. 😅 I even have a video applying the products on my instagram.

Great review, as always! If you’re taking suggestions, I would love to hear your thoughts on the melt cosmetics eyeshadow stacks- they’re reasonably pricey so it would be super valuable to hear your thoughts and to see comparison swatches/dupes! <3

I saw this in Ulta the other day–I was so excited to finally see it and swatch it in person..,man was I disappointed!! I had the same experience as you did Christine, with the colors being too dry to swatch! Not to mention it smelled like chemicals…so I checked the box and yup, this one was made in China. Out of the two holiday palettes from Tarte I definitely prefer the Treasure Box collectors set at Sephora; the shadows were softer and it has the traditional Tarte smell of vanilla.

We try to approve comments within 24 hours (and reply to them within 72 hours) but can sometimes get behind and appreciate your patience! 🙂 If you have general feedback, product review requests, off-topic questions, or need technical support, please contact us directly. Thank you for your patience!